84 
The President's Address. 
some of our members^ the addition to our numbers more 
than compensates for the loss. It is^ however^ always a 
painful task on these occasions to have to reflect that our 
numbers are diminished by the hand of death. During the 
past year seven of our members have been thus removed_, and 
amongst them you will recognise some of the earliest and 
most active members of our Society. They are Mr. J. N. 
Furze, Professor Henfrey^ Mr. Andrew Ross^ Mr. E. Speer, 
Mr. W. Stuart, Mr. Richard Taylor, and Dr. H. Eees. 
Some of these gentlemen demand from me more than a 
passing notice ; and I would first refer to Professor Henfrey, 
whose death at an early age we have not only to deplore as a 
loss to ourselves, but to science generally. Although, from 
disease of the lungs contracted in youth, he was never 
robust, he yet by unceasing industry acquired for himself a 
European reputation. He was originally intended for the 
medical profession, and studied at Bartholomew's Hospital ; 
but the state of his health induced him to abandon the 
arduous duties of practice, and devote himself entirely to 
science. The branch of study to which his tastes led him 
was that of botany, and in this science more particularly he 
attained his great distinction. One of his earliest works was 
on ^ Anatomical Manipulation,' which he wrote in con- 
junction with Mr. Alfred Tulke; this was published in 1844. 
About this time he was appointed Botanist to the Geological 
Survey of the United Kingdom ; he held this post but for a 
short time. He was subsequently appointed lecturer on 
Botany at the Middlesex Hospital, and at the St. George's 
Hospital School of Medicine. In 1847 he published his 
' Outlines of Structural and Physiological Botany ;' this 
work was illustrated by plates executed by himself. Several 
of these plates were devoted to the illustration of the micro- 
scopic structure of plants, and v/ere faithful representations 
of his own observations. He had at this time carefully 
investigated the views of Schleiden and Hugo von Mohl 
on the cytoblast and primordial utricle, and his work, at the 
time it was published, was a faithful epitome of the various 
observations that had been made on the histology and 
development of vegetable tissues. This work laid the founda- 
tions of one much more extended and complete, which he 
afterwards published in 1857, with the title, '^An Elemen- 
tary Course of Botany, Structural, Physiological, and 
Systematic; with a brief outline of the Geographical and 
Geological Distribution of Plants.' This work, which gives 
the most complete view of the histology and development of 
plants in our language, contains a large amount of original 
